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拍品專文
“His work is all about the everyday moments that linger in your mind—those small, quiet seconds that somehow capture life’s bigger picture. But they also feel like the best line of poetry you have read. They linger.”—Evan Pricco, Juxtapoz
(E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
Included in the artist’s first-ever institutional retrospective, organized by the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato near Florance, Louis Fratino’s large-scale You and Your Things epitomizes the warm and affectionate domestic scenes for which the artist is celebrated. Building on the legacy of art history—from Henri Matisse to Pablo Picasso and from Lucian Freud to David Hockney—Fratino’s paintings are a striking addition to the legacy of twentieth-century figurative painting. Often featuring friends, lovers, and members of the Queer community as his subject matter, Fratino’s subjects transcend categorization, resulting in beautiful, quiet, and intimate portraits of human relationships.
You and Your Things, painted in 2022, is an exemplar of the generous way in which Fratino paints his subjects. On a comfortable sofa, a man lies naked, cuddled up in the fetal position. At his feet, nestled in the crook between his body and the dark sofa is a small dog resting in a similar position. The man’s head is resting on his hands and he looks as though he could be sleeping were it not for his large dark open eyes, seemingly daydreaming and staring off into space. In front of him, is an array of objects—the “things” of the work’s title—laid out in an eclectic still life: bowls of fruit, a half-eaten banana, a peeled orange, half-drunk cups of tea and coffee, various vases of flowers, cutlery, and a selection of books are laid out bare for all to see.
Part of Fratino’s skill as a painter is the way in which he is able to infuse his two-dimensional figures with a palpable sense of warmth and vitality. Although his figures have been likened to the early figurative modernism of Matisse and Picasso, Fratino possesses an uninhibited joy in the act of painting along with an appreciation of the effects that the movement of his brush can achieve. “His use of oils is masterful, translating the textures of skin and fabric into something tactile and real. You don’t see his paintings, you feel them” (E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
This sense of affection is also present in the objects on the table too, for although the other person referred to in the title may not be physically present (does the “You” in title refer to the man lying on the sofa, or the man he is thinking about?), we feel their presence in the objects that they have left behind. In this respect, You and Your Things builds on the grand tradition of still-lifes such as The Paston Treasure (circa 1663, Norfolk Museum Collections). This rare painting represents the British Paston family, not through their physical likenesses but through the objects that they collected. In this magnificent seventeenth century ‘portrait’ each object embodies both the riches of the family and the Empire from which they were obtained.
A central feature of Fratino’s work is his deployment of art historical tenets from across the centuries. As a child he visited the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. where he became fascinated by the portraits of John Singer Sargent and the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Americas (Ginevra de’Benci, circa. 1474⁄1478). Later the artist was galvanized by Charlotte Mullin’s book Painting People about the resurgence of figurative painting “I realized there was this whole world of people who were looking at things I’d seen museums and making it work today. It was extremely exciting” (L. Fratino, quoted by A. Needham, “’I can’t wait to paint myself when I’m old and knobbly:’ the sensual world of Louis Fratino,” The Guardian, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
Fratino has admitted that his paintings are the result of his search for a beautiful life. His work captures the quiet moments—either alone or with a loved one—when nothing else matters. As one critic, describing his recent retrospective in Italy noted, “His work is all about the everyday moments that linger in your mind—those small, quiet seconds that somehow capture life’s bigger picture. But they also feel like the best line of poetry you have read. They linger” (E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
(E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
Included in the artist’s first-ever institutional retrospective, organized by the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato near Florance, Louis Fratino’s large-scale You and Your Things epitomizes the warm and affectionate domestic scenes for which the artist is celebrated. Building on the legacy of art history—from Henri Matisse to Pablo Picasso and from Lucian Freud to David Hockney—Fratino’s paintings are a striking addition to the legacy of twentieth-century figurative painting. Often featuring friends, lovers, and members of the Queer community as his subject matter, Fratino’s subjects transcend categorization, resulting in beautiful, quiet, and intimate portraits of human relationships.
You and Your Things, painted in 2022, is an exemplar of the generous way in which Fratino paints his subjects. On a comfortable sofa, a man lies naked, cuddled up in the fetal position. At his feet, nestled in the crook between his body and the dark sofa is a small dog resting in a similar position. The man’s head is resting on his hands and he looks as though he could be sleeping were it not for his large dark open eyes, seemingly daydreaming and staring off into space. In front of him, is an array of objects—the “things” of the work’s title—laid out in an eclectic still life: bowls of fruit, a half-eaten banana, a peeled orange, half-drunk cups of tea and coffee, various vases of flowers, cutlery, and a selection of books are laid out bare for all to see.
Part of Fratino’s skill as a painter is the way in which he is able to infuse his two-dimensional figures with a palpable sense of warmth and vitality. Although his figures have been likened to the early figurative modernism of Matisse and Picasso, Fratino possesses an uninhibited joy in the act of painting along with an appreciation of the effects that the movement of his brush can achieve. “His use of oils is masterful, translating the textures of skin and fabric into something tactile and real. You don’t see his paintings, you feel them” (E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
This sense of affection is also present in the objects on the table too, for although the other person referred to in the title may not be physically present (does the “You” in title refer to the man lying on the sofa, or the man he is thinking about?), we feel their presence in the objects that they have left behind. In this respect, You and Your Things builds on the grand tradition of still-lifes such as The Paston Treasure (circa 1663, Norfolk Museum Collections). This rare painting represents the British Paston family, not through their physical likenesses but through the objects that they collected. In this magnificent seventeenth century ‘portrait’ each object embodies both the riches of the family and the Empire from which they were obtained.
A central feature of Fratino’s work is his deployment of art historical tenets from across the centuries. As a child he visited the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. where he became fascinated by the portraits of John Singer Sargent and the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Americas (Ginevra de’Benci, circa. 1474⁄1478). Later the artist was galvanized by Charlotte Mullin’s book Painting People about the resurgence of figurative painting “I realized there was this whole world of people who were looking at things I’d seen museums and making it work today. It was extremely exciting” (L. Fratino, quoted by A. Needham, “’I can’t wait to paint myself when I’m old and knobbly:’ the sensual world of Louis Fratino,” The Guardian, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).
Fratino has admitted that his paintings are the result of his search for a beautiful life. His work captures the quiet moments—either alone or with a loved one—when nothing else matters. As one critic, describing his recent retrospective in Italy noted, “His work is all about the everyday moments that linger in your mind—those small, quiet seconds that somehow capture life’s bigger picture. But they also feel like the best line of poetry you have read. They linger” (E. Pricco, Louis Fratino’s “Sutra” is Timeless, Elegant and Longing in Memory,” Juxtapoz, November 14, 2024, online [accessed: 4/3/2025]).